and only hope remains
by Madame BonBons
Summary: Written for VivusEtIterum's challenge on HPFC. "She knows this, because hope remains and hope cannot die. People can."  "


**AN: This was written for VivusEtIterum's What You Can Make Of It Competition over on HPFC. Check it out, it's awesome.**

**My prompts were _burning the midnight oil, Friday night _and my two quotes were "Hope is a good thing, maybe the best of things, and no good thing ever dies." and "I'm waiting for an answer that I don't know I'll get." I didn't use them exactly, but they still managed to get into this. Enjoy!**

**Review please!**

_**Disclaimer disclaimer disclaimer...**_

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><p>"Kiss me."<p>

It is the last thing whispered into the night before the two people break apart and walk in opposite directions. It is a flickering candle, extinguished into the cool, dark night until only the thin coils of smoke remain wafting up from the candle which, if you asked the two people, smells like death.

The night swallows them whole, until the clacking of her high heels disappears and his whistling fades. There is no colour, the sky is a black as oil and the rain falling is as heavy as oil too.

It is midnight, and the oily sky is not letting up any respite of the sudden downpour and as the two people walk away, the sky seems to offer a warning. A bolt of lightning and thunder come down and causes the man to stop and look around. But then he continues walking. She has already been taken.

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><p>The meeting is a riot, people are shouting over each other and all that he wants to do is escape the noise and find out where his girlfriend has gone. She has been missing for over a week and there are no traces. The Bones' are dead, Edgar's twin brother has gone into hiding and Amelia, little Amelia has been taken in by old Caradoc Dearborn.<p>

He goes outside, and once again it is dark. If he was fresh out of Hogwarts he would be down at the Leaky Cauldron, drinking Firewhiskey with her until the sun came up. It is a Friday night after all. He wonders how exciting-Friday-nights have turned into dreadful-Friday-nights and her face swims before his eyes.

"Gid,"

He turns around. His brother's fiancée, Dorcas, has followed him.

"What do you want?" he snarls, and for a minute he thinks of a stupid werewolf joke that he must tell Remus the next time he sees him. It is sick thinking of humour when his girlfriend is missing and people are dying every day and this realisation slams him back into the real world.

"Don't give up hope." Dorcas says, clambering over the broken pots and tiles in front of the back door of the Order safe house.

"There's no such thing as hope. And if there is, it's evil. Because it's false." He retorts, feeling the darkness that is ever so present seep ever more into his heart and soul.

There is no answer for a while, and then slowly Dorcas replies.

"Hope is a good thing Gid. Maybe the best of things," she whispers and he suddenly realises that Marlene was – no, is - Dorcas' best friend. He is not the only one worried.

"Then why can I not feel any?" he asks brokenly, because this is the last straw. Bold Gideon Prewett has gone; the brass pieces of his soul cracking and puncturing his heart as more and more friends die and more and more people are forced into hiding.

She's looking at him now in pity, and her gold hair is shining in the dark. It is the only colour around and he is drawn to it, like a moth to a flame and suddenly he is crying into her shoulder and he can feel the engagement ring which Fabian stole from a Muggle shop digging into his neck.

And as if God is listening, a gap in the black clouds open and the moon peeks through, a little sliver of silver shining over the fields surrounding them. It isn't an answer, he's waiting for an answer that he'll never know if he'll get, but to Gideon it feels a lot like hope.

He pulls away from Dorcas and looks at the scene before wiping his eyes and starting to go inside.

He only just hears Dorcas murmur the end of her sentence, "no good thing ever dies."

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><p>She is wrong. The next week, Fabian and Gideon Prewett are found dead in the Order safe house, surrounded by five dead Death Eaters. Fabian's watch is given to Dorcas and a photograph of Marlene is found in Gideon's breast pocket. He never stopped waiting to know if she was alive.<p>

Marlene is found in her house, beaten to death (a Muggle punishment for a Muggle-born). She is hardly recognisable, but the watch that had belonged to Gideon is wrapped around her wrist and her family that are scattered all around her, also dead, are enough for Dorcas to confirm it is one of her best friends.

And Dorcas loses hope. They have been burnt, the members of the Order of the Phoenix are crumbling to ashes and so Dorcas gives Fabian's watch to Molly (just in case) and goes home to the apartment she shared with Marlene and the twins.

The Order of the Phoenix will rise up out of the ashes, and their fire will burn even brighter than before. Harry and Neville are alive and protected and she knows that Lily and James and Frank and Alice will fight until their dying breaths to keep them alive. She knows this, because hope remains - she told Gideon Prewett this and she knows it in her heart even if she wished she didn't - and hope cannot die. People can.

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><p><strong>Review please.. <strong>


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